


Coming Home

by splendidangharad



Category: Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Bonding, Civil War (Marvel), Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Impregnation, Kid Fic, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Omega Tony Stark, Pining, Reconciliation, Size Kink, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 01:15:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4459661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splendidangharad/pseuds/splendidangharad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He walks into the ruins of the Mansion carrying a hope. He walks out carrying something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a story that concerns itself with minor details like "continuity" and "characterization," mostly because the author is using stress-relief as a thinly-veiled excuse to write knotting porn, pining, and emotional self-flagellation. I hope you're here for the same reasons! WHEE!
> 
> That said, this ignores Secret Invasion completely (that is, the Skrulls never infiltrated Earth at all) and the whole plot where Rhodey is a cyborg, because I didn't feel like writing around it. Updates will probably be pretty slow, but assume this story hasn't been abandoned unless and until it's tagged as such.
> 
> I also feel I owe an apology to Sharon Carter, because "pregnant and sad about Steve" is really a plot that belongs to her. In this universe, she was never brainwashed, and she and Steve haven't been involved since before the SHRA conflict began. Sharon is an excellent character that I unfairly sideline for reasons of knotting porn, pining, and emotional self-flagellation. 
> 
> **Content warning:** The first sexual encounter takes place while Tony and Steve are physically fighting. This is later addressed (and the characters seek counseling), but I don't want to take violence between intimate partners lightly, even in a fantastic context like a comic book world. Heats in this are not an excuse for assault, nor are they treated as one; when an alpha or omega character goes into rut or heat, it makes them uncomfortably horny for a few days, but their instincts don't drive them out of control.

Howard Stark had had a saying: "Omegas are fine for a piece on the side," he'd liked to say, "but Christ, you don't _marry_ them." And Tony, young and impressionable and eager to live up to his father's expectations, had taken that to heart. He drank his whiskey neat, kept his beard trimmed, slept with any willing body that crossed his path, and took his pills. He took scent blockers and the psionic inhibitors necessary for an extreme allo; he took heat regulators and hormone smoothers; he took neural maskers and birth control and even an experimental cocktail of drugs that stopped his body from producing slick. He was, to all appearances, the consummate baseline human, a man who smelled like a beta and walked like an alpha.

Nobody would have suspected, of course. Allos were rare—alphas made up something like two percent of the population, omegas even less than that—and those with an extreme presentation were even rarer. Strictly speaking, he could have cut back on certain pharmaceuticals; there were one or two that were tailored not towards preventing scent-bonding but towards preventing _imprinting_ , a phenomenon so rare it was still regarded as a medical mystery. There were fewer than nine imprint pairs in the whole world—two omega/omega matches, one alpha/beta, and a handful of alpha/omega couplings.

Mainstream media ate the story up, of course, there were more Hollywood hits about imprinting than there were about Godzilla, but that didn't change that actual imprinting was a hell of a lot less likely than getting struck by lightning. Tony was paranoid enough that he took black market drugs to prevent it anyway, but he'd never expected—

Well. He'd never expected Steve Rogers, had he? Captain America hit him like five million volts straight to the heart; Tony was at first resentful and unwillingly fascinated, and then he took what might be charitably called a headlong dive into love. Steve _challenged_ him, and for that rare quality he would have had Tony's unstraying attention no matter what; but he was also quick to anger and forgive, thoughtful, an adrenaline-junkie artist who liked Tolkien and spent his Friday nights at equal rights rallies or labor union meetings, the opposite of everything Tony had been told he was, funny and solid, stubborn and rash and absolutely the best man Tony had ever met. He was sunshine.

And that, more even than his father's convictions or the lingering prejudice against omegas, was what told Tony he'd done the right thing in biting his tongue. That first day—the _best_ day—when they'd pulled Steve out of the ice, Tony had gone straight to a locked compartment on the submarine and downed twice his usual dose of pharmaceuticals. He kept it up after that, taking dangerous quantities of Gerulux and Noxanimin and Sicorra. Tony might have felt the tug that he knew, without doubt or question, meant he was Steve's, but he made sure Steve never felt a thing. All the case studies said imprinting was instantaneous, a matter of visual and neurochemical stimulation that was cemented by touch. There was a psychic component, too, of course—before science had come along to qualify the phenomenon, the favored term wasn't _imprints_ but _soulmates_.

He couldn't do anything about the dreams, but—

It was worth it, wasn't it, to make Steve happy? Steve made Tony want to be his best self, but all the wanting in the world couldn't change what was true. What Tony touched, he ruined. 

And now, after ten years of knowing each other and four months of war, they were here, in the ruins of what had once been the Avengers' home. Tony had wanted to _talk_ , he'd been blind enough to think he could _explain himself_ , arrogant enough to think he deserved to be heard. Instead there was this: the thin protection of the armor's undersuit, the fine tremors he couldn't quiet in his body that were the result of exhaustion, anxiety, and a decade of contact-starvation, and the blur of Steve's fist at it flew at his face.

Christ, Steve was fast. Tony twisted to the side, but the fist clipped his jaw anyway. He absorbed the pain and spun, locking one hand around the other to brace his elbow, striking hard at Steve's back, but Steve was already there, turning Tony's blow away. They staggered back from each other—no. Tony staggered back. Steve chose to let him.

Tony couldn't quantify what he was feeling. He wasn't entirely there at all; part of him was dividing his attention between the streams Extremis carried straight to his brain, part of him was aching, and part of him was floating above all this, wondering how he'd fucked up quite so badly. What a _talent_. The worst part was that Steve was right. Tony believed, he believed in Registration with all the fervor of a man who knew the alternatives weren't alternatives at all. He was staring at Steve, he realized; and Steve was staring back, something so broken and angry and _betrayed_ in his eyes that Tony couldn't help but wonder if maybe it wasn't just as personal for him as it was for Tony.

Steve spit blood and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, and then he said, "We should have talked sooner."

Tony was swinging at him before he'd even finished. Those other parts of him, the parts that hurt, that were elsewhere, those parts dimmed as his own anger rose up to meet Steve's. Didn't Steve realize that Tony was doing this for him, didn't he realize that Tony—

Steve didn't give an inch. He caught Tony's fist in one hand and then he did something complicated with his arm and shoulder and hip that sent Tony flying over him to crash through the ruins of what had once been the wall between the hall and the library. Tony landed hard but rolled, like he'd been taught, and then he jacked into Extremis and simulated a jolt of adrenaline, amped his reflexes, sharpened his focus. Steve was already bearing down on him, but Tony was ready, and he got in close, under Steve's guard, forcing him to grapple. This time they went down together, careening through another wall and into Tony's old suite. Tony rolled away and scrambled to his feet, but Steve was still _right there,_ breathing hard, smelling like sweat and anger, graphite and alpha and home—

His mouth came down on Tony's.

Everything fell away. Data feeds, security streams, worry, hurt, rage: all gone. His shock lasted half a heartbeat, and then it vanished, too, and Tony _keened_ into Steve's mouth. Steve's arm came around his back, and Steve's other hand slid up into his hair and then down to cup the back of his neck, and Tony arched his back and pushed himself closer, already frantic. His throat felt tight, his skin so thin it might tear; his blood was close to the surface.

Without breaking contact, Steve dragged his mouth from Tony's lips down to his jaw and then to the crook of his throat. He kept his face pressed there, breathing in deeply and then exhaling in forced huffs, and Tony realized that Steve was soaking up his scent. He'd spent a lifetime training himself out of his instincts, but even that didn't stop his body's reflexive response; he melted into Steve, went liquid and pliable, and tipped his head back to offer access to the long expanse of his throat. He was still quivering; everything was simultaneously heavy and sharp, languid and clear. He was also distantly aware that this was a terrible idea, that beyond the damage of the act itself there was no way to tell how his pharmaceutical cocktail would hold up against intimate contact with Steve, but then Steve's hands dropped to Tony's ass and he hoisted Tony up against him, and Tony stopped thinking again.

 _Fuck,_ Steve was strong. Tony could feel the thick muscles of his shoulders and back, but he held Tony without any strain whatsover, one arm under Tony's rear and the other hand tight on the back of Tony's thigh. Tony keened again and kissed Steve, tightened his legs around Steve's waist and kissed Steve, ground his hard cock against Steve's stomach and kissed Steve. "Christ," Steve said, _"Tony."_ He sounded wrecked.

Tony shivered and kissed him again. 

At some point they fell backwards onto what had been Tony's bed, sending dust motes scattering into the air. Tony didn't care. Steve's mouth was still fastened over his; Steve had lost his cowl somewhere along the line, and his body was heavy over Tony's. "Off," Steve said, and he tapped Tony's hipbone. It took a moment for Tony to understand—he felt like he was moving through honey—but then he retracted the undersuit. Steve's hips jerked against his as Tony bared his skin. It was involuntary, sudden enough that it almost made Tony feel like Steve wanted _him_ , had wanted him all along, wasn't merely using this opportunity to exorcise all his conflicted frustration…

There was no frustration in how Steve touched him, though. This, whatever it was, should have been all anger and rough handling, but while the intensity remained, violence had been exchanged for something exquisitely, painfully tender. Steve, who was still clothed, kept pausing to brush kisses against Tony's mouth, to breathe in his scent, to rub his face against Tony's skin. That was pure allo—baseline humans usually couldn't detect odors except in the broadest sense, but Steve was taking the time to rub his scent into Tony even though he didn't think Tony would be able to realize what he was doing. Tony did, though; the pharmaceuticals dulled his sense of smell, but not enough.

Because Tony wasn't a beta, a baseline; his hole felt soft and flushed—not slick, but like it should be—and it was all he could do not to clamp his teeth over Steve's throat and then hitch his legs around Steve's sides. He resisted the first impulse but not the second; he got one knee up against Steve's ribs and wrapped his other leg around the other man. It left Tony vulnerable and open, his cock dragging painfully against the mail of Steve's union suit. Tony didn't care. He didn't care how much it hurt. He wanted to be closer.

Steve, though, pushed himself off of Tony, sitting back on his heels. Tony whined, high in his throat—that was definitely an omega reaction—at the loss, but Steve was yanking the top half of his uniform off, and then he had one hand on Tony's chest, his thumb rubbing back and forth in what almost seemed like an attempt to soothe Tony. "Look at you," Steve said, and then he ran his hand down Tony's stomach, and then he kept going until his thumb was making those small, gentle strokes against the underside of Tony's hard, pretty cock.

Tony shoved his hips upward and whined again, as much at the sight as at Steve's touch. He was framed between Tony's splayed legs, still in his blue pants and red boots, but his impossibly broad chest was bare. He had a fading bruise on one shoulder. Tony didn't like that. He went up on his elbows and was reaching out when Steve's hand slipped even further; one moment he was teasing Tony's cock, and the next he was touching one thick finger to Tony's hole.

Tony wasn't built like most people. His hole was soft and flushed despite the chemically-induced lack of slick, and although the bond had never been allowed to realize, there was no denying that Tony was made for Steve, that Tony had been designed to be penetrated not by an alpha but by this alpha _specifically_ , that his body was tuned to and primed for Steve; and above all, there was no denying that beyond his body's responses, Steve and this act in particular were what Tony wanted so deeply and totally it had become almost impossible to get himself off without fantasizing about it.

When Steve tapped his forefinger against the sensitive rim of Tony's omega hole, Tony's entire body seized. His back arched in rictus, and his hips shot clear off the mattress. 

He used to fantasize about this. He used to—he used to concern himself more with _not_ fantasizing about this, actually, because it wasn't anything he had the right to fantasize about, but there were times he hadn't been able to stop himself. In those fantasies, he was the kind of person who made good decisions. He hadn't ever killed anyone; he'd had the strength of mind and will and the foresight and ingenuity to prevent himself from ever being controlled. He still drank socially, in moderation, and it was fine, because he'd never been an alcoholic. People were still alive. People he loved, and people he'd killed, all the people he'd killed with intent or by neglect or as sheer collateral damage were all still alive. No downed airliners. No downed fiancees. No nightmares, no pharmaceuticals, no infinite string of fixes for a heart that had never worked properly in the first place.

In those fantasies, Tony was still Iron Man, because he couldn't conceive of a reality where Iron Man wasn't the best part of him; but in those fantasies, he deserved to be Iron Man. That had always been one of his greater sins, that he'd guarded so ferociously something that was an utter misrepresentation, something that let him approach heroism when that quality was so foreign to him, but in those fantasies, he deserved to be Iron Man, and he deserved Steve.

In those fantasies, Tony had met Steve, and Tony had touched Steve, and Tony had something like—like— "You're a little late," maybe. And Steve said— What would Steve say? What had Tony always wanted Steve to say? "I love you," maybe. "You were worth waiting for."

In those fantasies, Tony had only had one bed partner for the past decade, and when Steve touched him, it was sometimes slow and sometimes easy and sometimes comfortable, and it was sometimes fervent and sometimes urgent and sometimes worshipful. In those fantasies, they knew each other inside and out, and Steve thought nothing of stroking a hand down Tony's flank at the end of his heat cycle before sliding a finger into the mess of come and slick dripping out of Tony's hole. In those fantasies, they owned each other.

Here it was all inverted. Steve was coming off of the edge of that wild anger, and Tony was exhausted and so far from calm he couldn't remember how to spell the word. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that Steve was between his legs. The immediate problems Tony could fix; he was, after all, an engineer. He excelled at applied problem-solving.

With his legs around Steve's waist, it was easy to roll them both over so Tony was straddling Steve's hips. He _was_ surprised that Steve went so easily, though—an alpha with that strong a presentation usually had a pretty severe roller-reflex. Irrelevant. Irrelevant irrelevant irrelevant, because with one hand planted in the middle of Steve's chest, Tony had just enough reach to grab for the nightstand. He came up with a screwdriver, an old watch, three decks of cards (one of them for Uno), and an expired box of condoms before landing on the real prize, which was a bottle of lubricant that had survived the destruction of the Mansion and would probably survive the end of the world.

He was already fingering himself by the time Steve put together Tony's scrabbling and the bottle and realized what Tony was doing, and then Steve improved everything when he pulled Tony's hand aside and replaced it with his own. He was heaving, his pupils blown wide and the flush on his cheeks high enough that Tony could almost believe he was in rut. His hands were… His fingers were enormous. Oh, god, oh everything that Tony worshipped in lieu of believing in a creator: oh filing systems and galvanization and al-Jazari, oh Avengers and hope for humanity and flight. Oh shit, oh shit oh shit oh shit—Steve's fingers were _inside of his body._ He was holding one of Tony's ass cheeks with one hand, gripping him so hard he was leaving bruises, and his other hand was between Tony's legs with two fingers in Tony's hole and Steve was _inside of him_.

Unable to fully process that information, Tony set to work on Steve's cock. It was difficult when his body kept involuntarily shivering at what Steve was doing to him, but— He was— _Oh—_

When he opened Steve's fly and worked the pants down his hips enough to take out his cock, Tony's brain when throw another soft reboot. Steve's cock was—

"Tony," Steve said. _"Tony."_ He was urging Tony over, and Tony went, let Steve roll him onto his back. Steve's fingers came out of him in the process, but Tony didn't mind, because Steve's alpha dick was pressed against his own cock, sleek and pretty against big and mean. Oh, Steve was all alpha, wasn't he? His cock was enormous, jutting up flat against his belly and so hard it was flushed a deep red. It was _enormous._ Long, thick—so thick Tony wasn't sure he could take the girth of it—with a big domed head and bulging veins and a slit that was dripping pre-come. It was uncut, too. Tony himself had neither a foreskin nor a circumcision scar, something none of his previous sex partners had noticed, but Steve's foreskin was retracted back from the head of his cock.

Right at the base was a swelling that only suggested the eventual size his knot would be. Fuck. _Fuck._ Tony almost came right then; Steve smelled so good, warm and heavy, a clean musk that lit up Tony's spine with associations, and he wasn't even bothering to peel off his pants. He took one of Tony's ankles and guided the leg up over his shoulder, and then hooked a hand under Tony's other knee to spread him wider yet.

Tony knew what had to be coming, but his mind refused to assemble the pieces into a whole. He knew that Steve was between his legs, knew that Steve was looking at his soft hole, knew that Steve had one guiding hand on his own thick cock—but the first slow touch of that cock was incomprehensible, like Tony had thought, had _wanted_ , for so long that he couldn't let himself believe it was really happening.

Steve grunted when the head of his dick dragged against Tony's perineum, and then he was right there, at the rim of Tony's hole. Tony—Tony wasn't even _breathing_ —

And then Steve pressed inside, in and in and in until his hips were snug in the cradle of Tony's thighs—

And he leaned over and braced himself on his hands—

And Tony remembered to breathe.

Steve was watching him; the blue of his eyes was almost entirely swallowed by his pupils, and he was panting—from the effort of holding still? Tony was still in shock. Tony had been in shock from the moment Steve's mouth had first covered his; or maybe Tony had been in shock for the past four months.

Tony was staring up, panting— _heaving_ —right back, breathing through his mouth, not sure if he was trying to suck in Steve's scent or avoid smelling him. God, Steve was _right there_ on top of him, caging him in, pinning Tony in place. Given all that was happening, Tony should have felt threatened, but the reality was that he felt and had around Steve only ever felt safe.

He realized he was trembling with the effort of holding still. His body and his willpower all gave out at once, and he arched into Steve, driving himself down onto Steve's alpha cock. Steve gasped, and his hips snapped forward, and he folded Tony in two to bend down and kiss him. Tony kissed him back; he'd spent so long holding himself apart, not touching Steve, not telling him the thousand things Tony wanted to say; he'd spent so long fighting the pull of their unrealized bond on their own. Now, finally, he yielded to Steve, and Steve—

Steve took what he was offering. When Tony arched into him, Steve worked a hand under the small of Tony's back and held him even more tightly. When Tony squirmed on Steve's cock in an involuntary plea against Steve's slow pace, Steve drove himself into Tony all the harder. When Tony tipped his head back and nosed his face under the corner of Steve's jaw, Steve curled himself over Tony to cover him entirely. _Cover_ —fuck, that was what they were doing. Steve wasn't wearing a condom; if not for Tony's drugs, Steve would be putting a baby into him, covering him like a stallion did a mare.

Tony had reached his saturation point for shame. It was curdling into desire in his stomach. He knew he wouldn't be a good father, knew that the last thing he deserved was _Steve's baby,_ but now the thought was out of the box, and he couldn't put it back in. Steve was taking him bare, and any minute now he was going to knot inside Tony and then come, right up into Tony's hole—

They were rutting in earnest now. Steve was so big and hard, he was in so _deep_ that Tony could barely think about anything else. _"Tony,"_ Steve said, like it was wrenched out of him, and Tony thought back _I love you I love you I love you_ —

-

When he woke up, he was alone in his old bed. He called his armor and burned the sheets with a blast from his gauntlet, and then he flew back to the place where he lived. There he stripped down, catalogued his bruises, and went to the shower. He tried to clean himself off dispassionately, but when he reached between his legs, the sensation of Steve's remaining come sliding out of him was too much; he came hard and fast again without touching his cock, and afterwards he leaned his head against the cool tile of the wall and shook. He didn't cry. He didn't think there was anything left in him to break.

He found out just how wrong he was two weeks later, when Captain America was assassinated on the steps of a New York courthouse.


End file.
